1. From my understanding the Establishment Clause was created so that congress would not be able to promote or establish a certain religion. The Establishment Clause made sure that there was a separation between the church and state they agreed to this clause because “In Europe, bitter wars were fought between and within states, often because the established church of one territory was in conflict with that of another; wars and civil strife were common, particularly between states with Protestant and Catholic churches that had differing interpretations of Christianity.”(Reading 9.1). Basically, the government saw how promoting and establishing a religion brought forth so many problems and war, so the government did not want to bring these problems over to their new land. The Lemon test was a sort of check list created by the Supreme Court to test laws and make sure the actions of the government do not violate the Established Clause.
2. Burning the US flag is protected by the First Amendment. In the case of Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court decided “that burning the flag was a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment and found the law, as applied to flag desecration, to be unconstitutional.”(Reading 9.1). The court basically saw it as a way of expressing themselves and freedom of expression is protected under the First Amendment.
3. When someone says “I’m taking the Fifth” they are referring to the Fifth Amendment on the US Constitution this means that the person is using their right to remain silent and not answer questions that could be used to incriminate them.

1. The difference between a war on terror and a traditional war is that in a traditional war we know who the enemies are we are going to battlefields to fight against the enemies everything is clear start to finish but when we talk about war on terror is a war of the mind “A war against terrorism is a war of the mind, so broadly defined that the enemy becomes anybody who makes us afraid. Indeed, what is conspicuous about American public discourse right now is how hard it is to talk about facts rather than fear.”(Reading 9.2). War on terror there is no clear enemy it could be anyone that’s what causes everyone to be on edge and afraid.
2. The “Roving Wiretaps” go against the Fourth Amendment because the Fourth Amendment is put in place to put a limit on both unreasonable searches and seizures and with the “Roving Wiretaps” they are pretty much allowed to wiretap anyone they find suspicious without telling them they or something of theirs is wiretapped. It allows them to spy on you or anyone you happen to come in contact with while being wiretapped this would be considered an invasion of privacy because now that gives them access to you and everyone around you.
3. The “Sneak & Peak” warrants also goes against a person’s Fourth Amendment because they are not letting the property owner know they will be conducting a search on their private property.
   

1. The primary differences in the role of citizens in government among the federal, confederation, and unitary systems are that in a federal system the citizens vote on who will represent them in the parliament or US congress then they make the decisions for the people, then for a confederation system the people hold more power because the central authority of the government has limited power because most of the decisions are made by the people, and finally in the unitary system of government the cental government has most of the power while the citizens have very little say in what happens.
2. From my understanding the system of division of power was created so no one person gets all the power in decision making of laws. The three branches are the Legislative branch which is responsible for making laws, then we have the executive branch which is the president, and his job is ” executing enforcing, and administering the laws and government.”(Reading 7.1), and finally we have the judicial branch ” their job is to interoperate and apply US laws through cases brought before them.”(Reading 7.1) they also have the say to rule laws unconstitutional.
3. During the COVID-19 pandemic the federal government played a big role in influencing how the state and local government were to react and deal with the crisis at hand. The federal government helped with providing financial help to states and local governments this included funding for economic relief, healthcare, and COVID testing. The federal government also helped with issuing guidelines such as travel restrictions, social distancing, and making rules to help make workplaces safer in order to help stop the spread.

1. The Constitution was written by the wealthy capitalist class. ” In 1787, just such wealthy and powerful “gentlemen,” our “Founding Fathers,” congregated in Philadelphia for the professed purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and strengthen the central government.” (Reading 6.1). The social class that was excluded were the working-class people, minorities and women. ” The slaves, the indented servants, the mass of men who could not qualify for voting under the property tests imposed by the state consecution laws, and women, disenfranchised and subjected to the discrimination of the common law. These groups were, therefore, not represented in the Convention which drafted the Constitution.”(Reading 6.2).
2. I would say that our social class structure of early United States society is the same because if we think back to module 5, we learned that only 1% of the population owns the nation’s wealth while 90% of the population is struggling. Which was the case even back in the early days the rich got richer, and the poor became poorer because of the implications that come with living in a society where there are such huge wealth inequalities is that it can make it hard for people to grow economically.
3. The people who wrote the Constitution were so afraid of democracy because they only cared about how they could protect their wealth and had no real interests with helping the lower struggling class.” In 1787, a worried George Washington wrote to a former comrade-in-arms that a constitution was much needed “to contain the threat of the people rather than to embrace their participation and their competence,” lest ” the anarchy of the propertyless would give way to despotism.””(Reading 6.1). They wanted people to feel like they had a say but in reality, they didn’t. ” The first object of government is the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property. So, government is there to see that those who have a taken for getting rich are not hampered in any way by those how might be poor in the process.”(Reading 6.1).

1. The source of wealth according to Federalist # 10 is superior intelligence. The factors that explain why some people get to posses wealth by owning private property, and other don’t is determined by race, what social class you’re born into, whether or not your educated and intelligent.
2. No, I do not agree with this explanation of wealth and poverty because I don’t agree that just because your poor you aren’t intelligent and because you’re rich you are.
3. The core mission of the US government was to protect the people that were acquiring wealth from the people it might affect. “The protection of these faculties is the first objective of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different and parties.” This does not surprise me because we are still experiencing this in today’s society, the wealthy are still far more favored and protected than the lower working-class people. Alot of the laws we still have today yes, they make working conditions better, and we have a more workers rights but it’s still a very unfair system and the rich are still underpaying their workers.
4. No, I am not surprised that Federalist # 10 is not in favor of democracy and supports a Republican form of government. The author dislikes a pure democratic form of government because that would give the people too much power and they didn’t want the minorities to be able to vote against things they found unfair because that would jeopardize the way they make their wealth these methods are usually unfair to the workers.

1. Means of production refers to the all the other stuff that goes into the production of something. These include things such as tools, natural resources, and a system that helps with how they will distribute or sell the product and they could do this through stores or even the internet. Let use a pizzeria for example the tools they use are the dough mixers, digital scales, pizza cutters and the brick ovens. The natural resources they use could be the tomatoes, water, peppers, anchovies etc. Then the way they distribute or sell the product is through their restaurant. Labor refers to the actual human employee doing the work such as getting the dough ready, preparing the pizza, tending to customers, etc.
2. Value is how much something is worth. A products value is measured by how much labor it takes to make something under normal circumstances. What makes something valuable is how much time and effort went into the making of a product.
3. Labor and value are related because the more labor a product needs the more valuable it will be.
4. Labor is how all wealth is created under any mode of production. It’s humans interacting with nature in order to create the wealth of society which is pretty much all the material stuff we see around us. Labour power is when labor is turned into a commodity. It’s when workers are forced to sell their own labor for a wage in order to survive.
5. Surplus value is the additional value created by workers beyond what they are paid for. It is important to know about in our studies of social class because this explains to us how the wealthy are able to stay wealthy and why the poor tend to stay poor. An example I could give of surplus value is me for example I go into work at 8am and I am pretty much done with my work by 12pm but I am not allowed to leave until 5pm, so then I am told to help a coworker with their job, and I am not getting paid extra for doing the extra work.

The M-C-M’ is regarded as the general formula of capital which is basically buying commodities in order to sell them for more than what they bought it for. M stands for money, C stands for commodities, and M’ stands for more money. The way that capitalists are able to maintain and increase their wealth is by first using the first M money to buy C which are commodities which they then sell for M’ more money. Their goal is to get surplus value using the M-C-M’ process. This ongoing cycle is what helps capitalists maintain and increase their wealth.

1. The statistics on wealth inequality in the US that made the biggest impression on me is the fact that only 1% of the population own the nation’s wealth while 90% of the population is struggling. ” The top 1 percent owe between 40 and 50 percent of the nation’s total wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. True between 40 percent of families own some stocks or bonds, but almost all of them have investments of less the $2,000. Taking into account their debts and mortgages, 90 percent of American families have little or no net assets.” This statistic made a big impression on me because it really opens your eyes up to how only a very small percentage of our population hold a majority of the wealth while the rest of our population is struggling.
2. One of the implications that come with living in a society where there are such huge wealth inequalities is that it could make it hard for people to grow economically. Yes, I do see it being played out in everyday life we always see the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer no matter how much schooling or working a poor person does we will never be able to be part of that 1%.

1. The similarities between reading 4.1 and 4.2 are that they both show us how income plays a big factor on which social class you fall under. The differences between the two reading were that in reading 4.1 they talk about and show us how there are a lot of other factors that determine what social class you fall under for example it talks about how social class is determined through income, wealth, education and occupation. While reading 4.2 just showed us your social class based on how much you make and where you live.
2. I usually take the 7 train to 90th street Elmhurst av. The social class that resides at this location are considered lower working class. I am not surprised by this because a lot of people that I know personally that live where I do struggle finically, they barely speak English and usually don’t have education or if they do, they didn’t graduate high school. I do believe it is an accurate representation of where I live.
3. Yes, I do notice a pattern. I noticed that most of the people that tend to fall higher on the social class status tend to live in Manhattan while people who fall under the lower classes tend to live in the other boroughs like Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn.